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Louis O. Coxe
United States | spouse = Edith Winsor | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | influences = Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost | influenced = | signature = | website = }} Louis Osborne Coxe (April 15, 1918 – May 25, 1993) was an American poet, playwright, essayist, and academic. He was probably best known for his dramatic adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd, which opened on Broadway in 1951. Life Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, Coxe was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He attended Princeton University, where he was a student in Allen Tate's Creative Arts program. Coxe, Louis O., Searchable sea literature, Williams College / Mystic Seaport. Web, June 18, 2014. He graduated from Princeton in 1940, writing his senior thesis on Edwin Arlington Robinson. During World War II Coxe served in the United States Navy, commanding the U.S.S. PC-549 in the South Pacific theater during the Northern Solomon Islands campaign and the invasions of Guam andof Saipan]-Tinian (and later the U.S.S. PC-1195), an experience that would shape much of his poetry. After leaving active service in 1946, he married Edith Winsor, granddaughter of Boston financier Robert Winsor, and began teaching at Princeton. He was Briggs-Copeland Fellow at Harvard University from 1948 to 1949, and from 1949 to 1955, he taught at the University of Minnesota. Coxe then moved to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1956, where he remained (except for brief appointments at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, and the University of Aix-Marseilles, France) as head of the English department until his death in 1993 after 11 years suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Writing Coxe received his largest critical recognition for his dramatic adaptation, with Robert Chapman, of Herman Melville's morality tale Billy Budd, which opened to critical acclaim on Broadway in 1951, The ''New York Times''' Brooks Atkinson called it "extraordinarily well done," and said that "the tragic portions are written with taste, firmness and intelligence." Coxe was also credited with co-writing the screenplay for Peter Ustinov's film version of the play. He wrote several other plays, most for local productions in Maine, 1 of which, "Decoration Day" (about Civil War general Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain), was published as a book along with his long narrative poem "Nikal Seyn." He was also praised for his criticism, writing books on both Chaucer and Edwin Arlington Robinson. But Coxe's main focus was his poetry, which U.S. Poet Laureate Howard Nemerov called "terse, cryptic, almost savage in their beauty." Much of his work focused on his experience during World War II and the natural environment of his native New England. Several of his poems, reviews and essays appeared first in The New Yorker, The New Republic, Paris Review, and Atlantic Monthly. Recognition Billy Budd (1951) won both the Donaldson Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for best play. In 1972 the Maine State Commission on the Arts and Humanities presented Coxe with a Maine State Award for his significant contributions to the cultural life of the state. In 1977 he was named the 36th fellow of the Academy of American Poets, recognized for his "long, powerful, quiet accomplishment, largely unrecognized, in lyric poetry." He was awarded a creative writing grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that same year. One of the last poems he published, "Nightsong" (1983), was featured in the anthology Fifty Years of American Poetry. Awards * Donaldson Award for Drama, 1952. * Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play, 1951 * Brandeis University Creative Arts Award, 1960. * Maine State Award, 1972 * National Endowment for the Arts creative writing grant, 1977. * Academy of American Poets Prize, 1978.Louis O. Coxe (1918-1993), Maine State Library. Maine.gov, Web, June 18, 2014. Publications Poetry * The Sea Faring, and other poems. New York: Holt, 1947. *''Over the Water the Sun Plays Down''. Winston-Salem, NC: Palæmon Press, 1954. * The Second Man, and other poems. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1955. * The Wilderness, and other poems. Minneappolis, MN: University of Minnesoa Press, 1958. * The Middle Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. * The Last Hero, and other poems. 1965. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1966. * Nikal Seyn & Decoration Day: A poem and a play. Nashiville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1966. * Passage: Selected poems 1943-1978. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1979. * The North Well: New poems. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1985. Plays * Billy Budd: A play in three acts (by Coxe & Robert Harris Chapman). New York: Hill & Wang, 1951. * Nikal Seyn / Decoration Day: A Poem and a play. Nashville, TN: Vanberbilt University Press, 1966. * Birth of a State. Augusta?, ME: Maine State Sesquicentennial Commission, 1970? Non-fiction * Edwin Arlington Robinson; The life of poetry. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1962; New York: Pegasus, 1969.. * Enabling Acts: Selected essays in criticism. Columbus, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1976. Edited * Chaucer, (with introduction and notes). New York: Dell, 1963. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au: Louis O. Coxe, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, June 18, 2014. See also *List of U.S. poets *List of English-language playwrights References External links ;Poems *Louis O. Coxe in Poetry: "Beowulf," "Swift's Tomb in St. Patrick's" ;About *Louis Osborne Coxe '40 memorial in Princeton Alumni Weekly * Louis O. Coxe, 75; His Poems Reflected New England Roots, obituary by Marvine Howe. New York Times, May 28, 1993]. *Professor, playwright, poet Louis O. Coxe, 75 obituary, Chicago Tribune. *Coxe, Louis O. in Searchable sea literature * Obituary: Louis Osborne Coxe. Saint Paul's School Alumni Horae Autumn 1993, Volume 73, Issue 3, Page 223. * Louis O. Coxe at IMDb. ;Etc. *Louis O. Coxe Collection, Princeton University Library. Category:1918 births Category:1993 deaths Category:People from Manchester, New Hampshire Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Harvard Fellows Category:American poets Category:American dramatists and playwrights Category:Writers from Maine Category:Bowdoin College faculty Category:People from Brunswick, Maine Category:20th-century poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:American academics